


#60 "Spring"

by theskywasblue



Series: 100 days, 100 prompts [19]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Harm to Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9808478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: Ben is pretty sure something is dying underneath his porch.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of 100 days, 100 prompts

Ben is pretty sure something is dying underneath his porch.

They’ve had close to five days of solid melt, and the cabin and surrounding forest is swimming in it. Leaf rot and the first, lonely tufts of grass are beginning to show on the few dry patches of land in between islands of dirty slush, and Ben, dressed in tattered jeans and a threadbare T-shirt, spent all morning plowing little trenches through the still mostly frozen mud, to funnel the worst of the water away from the house, so he wouldn’t wake up with six inches of water under the floorboards, like last year when he’d been laid up recovering from surgery, still; his arm in a sling and unable to do much but feel shitty. 

He’d found the broken skirting on the porch by coincidence rather than design, and wrote it off as simple seasonal damage that would need to be ; until he saw the blood in some nearby snow, and the pawprints in the mud.

There are a pair of dark eyes staring at him from deep inside the muddy hole as he crouches mostly in a puddle and peers into the dark; but he’s not sure what they belong to. Too big for a squirrel or a raccoon; but the hole itself is too small for bear, and the pawprints look like dog. Could be a coyote. Ben, by half nature and half habit, is wary of the local coyote population, who aren’t nearly as scared of men as they ought to be, considering how many of them get shot in a year.

He slides just a little closer, bracing the fingers of one hand in a puddle that’s sharply cold, sending weird, almost electric shocks of pain up his arm, and he leans into the darkness until the animal makes a soft, and definitely canine sound of panic.

After a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, Ben can just make out the shape of it: dark muzzle, pointed ears; a dog, definitely, but the domestic variety. There’s a piece of a frayed rope around its thick neck, and a wound to its right front leg that’s horrific, at best. A bit of bone stands out from the meat and fur, glossy and horrifically familiar.

“Hey, boy,” Ben says, gentle, cautious, as he eases himself down onto his belly, not particularly concerned about the cold mud that soaks his belly, his arms, the front of his jeans as he starts worming his way into the narrow space. The dog whines, but doesn’t back up, doesn’t move at all. It’s filthy with mud, and probably blood, and it looks terrified, but maybe also just a little bit hopeful as Ben slides towards. “That’s alright. I’m gonna help you.”


End file.
